Monster
by Querida Usagi
Summary: Serena has always been sure about all aspects of her life. However, when she discovers a horrifying secret about her best friend that threatens to tear them apart, she is confronted with the options of running away from her problems or facing them.


Prologue: Footprints on my Heart 

**For those of you who read my stories, I'm sorry! I just recently began visiting & I realize that I've left you hanging with my cliffhangers that I have _yet_ to update on. I know that you've been more than patient so far, but have a little faith in me. I'll eventually get it done, seeing as I've decided to spend _at least_ two hours writing every night, when I get the time (I'm a busy girl with a ton of schoolwork, you see).**

**This prologue is a bit short, but the first chapter will be a good amount longer. It's just an abstract view of Serena's mind.**

**One thing I must clear up is, _yes, _I _did_ switch up Mina's name a few times in this story. 'Mina' is just short for 'Minako' here, it's not that I lapsed and got confused. I wanted her name to stay Japanese for a bit of diversity. I might do the same with the rest of the characters, but Serena and Rachel (Raye) will remain with their American names.**

**This is an alternate universe story; Sailor Moon is merely a television show and comic in their world.**

**Please review (without flaming).**

**Thank you!**

**Recommended Soundtrack: Live to Tell- Madonna**

**& now to the goods…**

_**Dreamland**_

_By a route obscure and lonely,_

_Haunted by ill angels only,_

_Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,_

_On a black throne reigns upright,_

_I have reached these lands but newly_

_From an ultimate dim Thule-_

_From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,_

_Out of SPACE- out of TIME._

_Bottomless vales and boundless floods,_

_And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,_

_With forms that no man can discover_

_For the tears that drip all over;_

_Mountains toppling evermore_

_Into seas without a shore;_

_Seas that restlessly aspire,_

_Surging, unto skies of fire;_

_Lakes that endlessly outspread_

_Their lone waters- lone and dead,-_

_Their still waters- still and chilly_

_With the snows of the lolling lily._

_By the lakes that thus outspread_

_Their lone waters, lone and dead,-_

_Their sad waters, sad and chilly_

_With the snows of the lolling lily,-_

_By the mountains- near the river_

_Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-_

_By the grey woods,- by the swamp_

_Where the toad and the newt encamp-_

_By the dismal tarns and pools_

_Where dwell the Ghouls,-_

_By each spot the most unholy-_

_In each nook most melancholy-_

_There the traveller meets aghast_

_Sheeted Memories of the Past-_

_Shrouded forms that start and sigh_

_As they pass the wanderer by-_

_White-robed forms of friends long given,_

_In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven._

_For the heart whose woes are legion_

_'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-_

_For the spirit that walks in shadow_

_'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado!_

_But the traveller, travelling through it,_

_May not- dare not openly view it!_

_Never its mysteries are exposed_

_To the weak human eye unclosed;_

_So wills its King, who hath forbid_

_The uplifting of the fringed lid;_

_And thus the sad Soul that here passes_

_Beholds it but through darkened glasses._

_By a route obscure and lonely,_

_Haunted by ill angels only,_

_Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,_

_On a black throne reigns upright,_

_I have wandered home but newly_

_From this ultimate dim Thule._

_-Edgar Allen Poe_

I've never been one to question fate.

I've always just let things flow. No queries of 'why'd this happen' and 'how did this come to be'. I like to let events, both unpleasant and pleasant, run their courses.

Even when my father, who was always very impetuous, walked out on my mother and I because of an inane argument. Even when my boyfriend of three years, Seiya, broke up with me on the last day of our sophomore year of high school and left me to rot over the forthcoming summer, more or less.

Even when I discovered that my mother had filled out an application for me behind my back (due to my apparent lack of work ethic) and that I'd be laboring away at Starbucks that summer alongside the class bitch, Rachel Hino.

Even when Rachel continually insulted my style, my intelligence, and my pride on a daily basis.

Even when I found her in the stark Starbucks bathroom, crouched over and sobbing painfully on the cold tile floor that I was sent to clean up, the white lights painting harsh lines on her disturbingly beautiful face.

Even when, slowly but steadily, I started seeing Rachel as a friend, rather than a foe. And even when I became her confidante, and she became my Raye- my favorite mistake. My best friend.

It just always seemed like the way to be.

And I never questioned it.

Until I met Mina.

It's funny how things done in the dark eventually come out to light. Secrets and lies can only be concealed for so long until it begins to fester and bubble up under your skin, constricting your thoughts, beliefs, and everything revolving around them.

I can pretty much separate my life into two different lifetimes: BM and AM. Before Minako and After Minako. Before I met Minako, I thought that I had it all figured out. I knew exactly what classes I was going to take my senior year of high school. I knew what college I was going to attend, what I wanted to build a career in. I knew who I was and what I wanted to be. I had direction.

"_After Minako"_ came like a shrouding dark cloud, to loom over and bury me, and it seeped in with the promise of suffocation and an untimely expiration for us all. My life was no longer certain, no longer sure, and I found myself to be on a rickety rollercoaster holding back tears because I was too afraid to show emotion.

And even though I was on this rollercoaster, biting back the tears that would inevitably spill, I could hear it.

A sobbing sound.

It didn't immediately strike me, but instead sank into my senses and drained into my pores- my heart.

It was a heart-wrenching sound, an echo across my mind… and it turned me black. It created a dismal veil over everything I held dear.

It stained my insides and sucked me dry until I could no longer figure out who I was.

And an icy darkness swallowed me whole.

If you knew Mina, you know what I'm talking about.

If you didn't, you couldn't possibly understand.

Once we opened that Pandora's box, there was nothing we longed for more than to close it swiftly and have the Earth consume us whole.

Even Minako.

Especially Minako.

And it did.


End file.
